Tatsuya Kawajiri

Nick Diaz throws a left hand at Josh Neer. Photo property of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Here are the complete results from last night’s DREAM.3 event, which took place at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.

The event featured the second-round of the promotion’s inaugural lightweight grand prix tournament. Tatsuya Kawajiri, Eddie Alvarez, and Caol Uno all moved on. Nick Diaz and Jason “Mayhem” Miller were also victorious in their respective DREAM debuts. A full recap of the event will come later today.

With a scheduled lightweight bout between Nick Diaz and Katsuya Inoue now seemingly set to happen once again, the fight card for DREAM’s second effort in as many weeks is now complete.

The event, which will once again take place at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan, will be highlighted by the second-round of the promotion’s inaugural lightweight grand prix tournament. Second-round grand prix matchups set to happen include Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Luis Buscape, Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Caol Uno, who will be fighting as a late-entrant into the tourney, and Joachim Hansen vs. EliteXC’s Eddie Alvarez.

Take note that Shinya Aoki, who won an unanimous decision over Gesias Calvancante last week, will face Katsuhiko Nagata in the fourth tournament bout at the organization’s June 15th show, thus why only three grand prix bouts are slated for tomorrow morning/night in Japan.

Jason “Mayhem” Miller, who has not fought since avenging a previous loss to Tim Kennedy in December, will take on K-1 Hero’s veteran Katsuyori Shibata, loser of his last three fights.

Those in North America will be able to see the event live on HDNet starting at 3 AM ET. A replay of the event is slated to air at 4 PM ET on Sunday afternoon for those who don’t feel like staying up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the show from Tokyo.

Less than a month after fans were left with a disappointing ending to a much-anticipated matchup between Gesias Calvancante and Shinya Aoki, Fight Entertainment Group has announced that the two lightweights will rematch at DREAM’s next upcoming event on April 29th.

The show, which will take place at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan, will also feature the opening round of DREAM’s first middleweight grand prix. Japanese legend Kazushi Sakuraba will return to action against Karate practitioner Andrews Nakahara in a quarterfinal bout. Additional scheduled fights include Masakatsu Funaki vs. Kiyoshi Tamura and Denis Kang vs. Gegard Mousasi.

Aoki and Calvancante’s bout last month was ruled a no-contest after Calvancante struck Aoki with illegal elbows to the back of Aoki’s neck. Calvancante was warned and Aoki given time to recover, but after a few moments the esteemed grappler wasn’t able to continue.

The two were originally set to face off at Yarennoka! on New Year’s Eve but Calvancante was forced to pull out of the fight after suffering a knee injury during training. The injury occurred on the same knee that he had surgery on this past fall.

FEG officials also revealed the next set of matchups for DREAM’s lightweight grand prix in May: Joachim Hansen will challenge Philadelphia Fight Factory product Eddie Alvarez, Tatsuya Kawajiri will meet Luiz Firmino, and Mitsuhiro Ishida will go up against Caol Uno, who has been added to the bracket as a late entrant.

The winner of Aoki-Calvancante will have no time to rest as they will go on to face Katsuhiko Nagata just twelve days later at the May 11th show.

Held before a sellout crowd at the Saitama Super Arena—with millions of Japanese television viewers watching live—DREAM.1 featured seven qualification bouts in the DREAM Lightweight (70 kg/154 lbs) class, along with a trio of open-weight fights. This was the inaugural DREAM production—but such is the talent on tap that fans have already dubbed DREAM one of the world’s finest mixed martial arts productions.

All bouts were fought under Official DREAM mixed martial arts rules, with a 10 min first and 5 min second round.

Probably the most highly-anticipated fight on the card featured 33 year-old Mirko Cro Cop, who took on Japanese judo fighter Tatsuya Mizuno. Cro Cop wasted no time here, firing in the low kicks from the bell, stepping forward to lock up Mizuno’s right arm then pumping in uppercuts and straight punches to deposit his opponent on the canvas in a heap of pain. Cro Cop leapt atop the unresponsive Mizuno for a ground and pound finish, leaving the referee no choice but to jump in and call it.

“A lot of fighters refuse to fight me these days, but he had courage and he accepted,” said Cro Cop afterward from center ring. “For my next fight, I will need a stronger opponent, so anyone is welcome!” Who will answer the call?

We will be going live at 6:00 AM EST with live results of Yarennoka!, which is taking place at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

Yarennoka! features the return of Fedor Emelianenko as he takes on K-1 kickboxer Hong Man Choi. The undercard includes Gilbert Melendez going up against Mitsuhiro Ishida and Kazuo Misaki battling with Yoshihiro Akiyama. Shinya Aoki, Hayato Sakurai, and Murlio Bustamante will also be competing.

For those that are interested, the event is being shown live on HDNet starting at 6 AM EST.

John Chandler here again, breaking down Yarennoka! and K-1 Premium 2007 Dynamite!! fight-by-fight, including detailed predictions along the way.

Yarennoka! features the return of Fedor Emelianenko as he takes on K-1 kickboxer Hong Man Choi. The undercard includes Gilbert Melendez going up against Mitsuhiro Ishida and Kazuo Misaki battling with Yoshihiro Akiyama.

K-1 Premium 2007 Dynamite!! features an astounding total of 13 fights - 7 MMA bouts and 6 kickboxing matches. (I’ll only be previewing the MMA fights) The event is headlined by a main event between long-time Japanese veterans Kazushi Sakuraba and Masakatsu Funaki. Bob Sapp, “Kid” Yamamoto, Kiyoshi Tamura, Melvin Manhoef, and Ikuhisa Minowa will all be in action.

Kawajiri is coming off of an unanimous decision loss to Gilbert Melendez at PRIDE Shockwave 2006 which took place last New Year’s Eve. Before the loss, Kawajiri had won nine out of his last ten bouts. Azeredo has not fought since winning a decision over Paul Daley at Cage Rage 19 in December of 2006. Azeredo owns a win over current UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva.

DEEP official Shigeru Saeki expects the fight to be a war on the feet:

“I expect Kawajiri’s fight with Azeredo to be an aggressive fisticuff style fight,” Saeki said. “It will be exciting.”

The press conference was attended by a load of former PRIDE and DSE officials, including Nobuhiko Takada. Many of them will be involved in the running and production of the event. The event will be broadcast on SkyPerfecTV PPV and as of right now, there are no plans to have anything other than a Japanese-only broadcast.

Fighters that have been announced as officially competing at the event are Fedor Emelianenko, Hayato Sakurai, Shinya Aoki, Tatsuya Kawajiri, and Mitsuhiro Ishida. Other fighters that were mentioned as possibly competing at the event were Kazuo Misaki, Joachim Hansen, Ricardo Arona, Gilbert Melendez, Luiz Azevedo, and Hidehiko Hasegawa.

There was no mention of Hong Man Choi in any forum, leading more credibility to The Fight Network’s Brian Knapp and his report via Monte Cox that Hong Man Choi is not signed to fight Fedor and is nothing more than an option as of right now.

Cox mentioned a few details in terms of the lending out of Fedor by M-1. Fedor is set to be paid $1.5 million by the Japanese promotion and they are also responsible for choosing Fedor’s opponent:

“Part of the deal is that they choose the opponent,” Cox said. “They’re choosing an opponent that makes sense for the Japanese market.”

I’ll update this post whenever I receive more information on the press conference.

- Duane Ludwig till take on Shinya Kamuzawa at Ring of Fire 28: Evolution on February 28th…

- Benji Radach is the newest member of the IFL’s Los Angeles Anacondas. He will be fighting at middleweight for coach Bas Rutten.

- Shooto World Welterweight Champion Tatsuyva Kawajiri relinquished his title yesterday after announcing he would be able to defend his belt at the next Shooto event on February 17th because of a broken left thumb.